Christmas Adventures in Denver-Day 7

Today is Sunday. I woke up early again (side note here: Raelynn has woken at the crack of dawn and has woken me up in the process each day. I've been staying up late talking with family so I'm dragging. The only redeeming factor here is that I can take a nap--which I did today) and my mom made biscuits again at the request of Raelynn. My mom also heated up some leftover ham from Christmas, so those of us that were up enjoyed ham biscuits. My brother woke up earlier than he usually does and he made cafe con leche for us. This is something I miss from Key West. The only thing close to that at home is a latte from the local coffee house. Since it's on the other side of town and each cup costs like $5 I don't enjoy them often. My dear selfless brother makes coffee with his espresso machine twice a day for everyone in the house. I think if his gig as an electrical engineer doesn't pan out, he'd make a nice living as a barista. The past few days I've had coffee, I've shared it with David. This morning, I had a full cup. And by cup I mean really big cup. Several hours later, I was shaking as I coming off the caffeine high. A little nap cured that!


We went to my brother's church this morning for worship time. His church is really nice and for the most part, people here dress up for church. Now keep in mind that I'm the queen of comfort. Also, I don't own (or want to own) winter type clothes. Somehow the regular summer type clothes I wear to church would stand out around here. So, in preparation for that, I went and bought a dress in Starkville before coming here. I wore it today but it wasn't nearly as comfortable as I had hoped it would be. Part of the problem may also have been that I was wearing hose and high heels. These are two things that I really stay away from. Back in the day, I'd wear high heels because I thought it made my legs look good, and it did. (My legs and feet are probably my best physical features.) But when you get older, it just doesn't become practical. And I don't really care if anyone thinks my legs look nice now (but know that they do.) As for the hose, I find it very uncomfortable. I rarely wear them. I think I wore them at my wedding 14 years ago and since then have worn them about 3 times. Today I wore them because I didn't want to freeze. I wore the heels because I couldn't find a decent pair of winter type church shoes in Starkville. Also, I'm not fond of closed in shoes. My winter shoes that I wear to work are slides. I do have enough sense to know that slides (with a closed toe) don't look good with a dress. So, instead of buying new shoes that I hate, I thought I'd just use shoes that I hate that I already have. I saved a few bucks the way I see it.


When I got dressed this morning, I put on the hose and really quickly made a huge hole in one foot. Great. And wouldn't you know that I didn't pack the clear nail polish.. The good news here is that I got the extra large size so the hole never went anywhere. However, the down side is that the hose slowly started to congregate around my ankles. At one point, my niece was looking at my shoes and said it looked like my heels had straps. What? How did I manage to look like a retard? I thought I had planned for this.....I guess not. The church service was good and no one was pointing and laughing at me (this IS church after all) so I made it through. Know this though, I threw the hose away the moment I walked in the house and buried the shoes in my suitcase. Oh, and did I mention that I slipped and slid on the ice getting in and out of the car at church? Nice. At least I didn't fall. That would have been bad.


After church, my brother suggested we go to a restaurant called Spicy Thai. I've never had Thai food before, but surprise surprise it's basically Chinese food. I ordered something called Moon Harbor. I know, it sounds like a song, right? Basically it was ground chicken cooked with onions, peppers and you eat it with some rice on lettuce leaves like you were making a taco. It was pretty good. I like Chinese food, but given a choice, I'd chose something else.


After that, I came home and organized my stuff and Raelynn's stuff. My sister-in-law keeps a very tidy house and I'm sure that having all these people over here messing stuff up is killing her. I'm trying very hard to keep my area neat. After cleaning up, I took a short nap. Raelynn woke me again (but this time because David asked her to) and we went for a walk in the snow. It was pretty but cold. We walked to an area that in the summer has lots of prairie dogs living in it. I wonder where they are now. Do they hibernate? Do they go somewhere else? Who is enjoying watching them poke out of their holes now? At any rate, it wasn't me. Raelynn walked with us (me, David, and my sister-in-law Susan) and complained the whole way. One minute she's asking to play in the snow and the next she's complaining she wants to go back in the house. We did turn around when she said she was tired. I'm going to certainly get my money's worth out of the pink fuzzy snow boots that I bought for her.


Right now, my mother is sitting at the kitchen table reading a book. My dad, brother, and niece's husband,Tim are watching a football game. My sister-in-law Melissa is upstairs with Jayden, who I hope is taking a nap. David and Susan are sitting at the dining room table with me and playing Upwords. I haven't seen my nephew Christian in a little while so he's either not here or is hiding ( just found him....he's sleeping on the couch.) Raelynn moves from room to room and visits with everyone. My niece Sable is laying on the couch and taking a nap. She's currently 32 weeks pregnant and has been experiencing contractions at night. She's not feeling well. On a side note, Raelynn has named the new baby "Jim." She said this was a good name. Sable and Tim are leaning toward Paxton or Nathan right now. I think Raelynn is still going to call him Baby Jim.


It's a lazy evening. I think we may go out later to celebrate David and my completion of graduate school. Even if we don't you can bet that I'm going to blog about the food later. After all, isn't that what it's all about?